The Use of Authentic Materials Toward Students’ Critical Thinking Skill

Iis Sulyaningsih

English Department, Politeknik Negeri Bandung, Indonesia

E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to investigate the use of 'authentic materials' in the teaching of Reading to
promote student’s critical thinking. Critical thinking ability becomes important since it includes the
ability to analyse problems, make decisions and solve problems which will affect people's attitudes in
daily life. A qualitative method was applied in this research: the data were analysed referring to sets of
critical reading questions and text analysis framework by Robert McGregor (2001). The results that show
the level of students' thinking skill is analysed by referring to the stages of Critical Thinking Rubric and
loom’s Taxonomy. This study discovered that authentic materials can be used as an effective teaching
material to promote students' critical thinking abilities. However, the students’ thinking ability were in
comprehension stage. This implies that the use of authentic materials should also be supported by other
aspects such as suitable chosen texts and an appropriate teaching method.

Keywords: authentic materials, critical thinking, critical reading

INTRODUCTION

Today, globalization of information, either mass or electronic, is easily to be

accessed. Thus, our students are also easily gain and easily come to their own
conclusion without determining whether the information are true or not true. The
problem is if they believed the untrue information (hoax), they will get miss-
understanding and miss-perception, and they may act wrong. This is not good for
themselves and for the community as well. Therefore, it is important for them to be
critical in reading as stated by Chaffee (2002) that readers are recommended to have
critical thinking skill as an act of being careful to be able to make reasonable and
accurate decision. Students need to upgrade and develop their ability on critical thinking
to know how to analyze problem for a solution and complete logical reasons in decision
making.
The skill of critical thinking can be trained and learned by integrating it into
subjects of Reading and Writing, in which it is proven by many previous studies.
Research written by Emilia (2010) proved that teaching Reading and Writing subjects is
an effective way to develop students’ critical thinking skill. It is because those two

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subjects enable students to communicate their argumentation through writing.

Furthermore, another previous research regarding application of critical thinking in
teaching Reading (Sulyaningsih, 2010) shows that forming the critical thinking skill is
possibly integrated in subject of Reading. Next research, which are ‘The developing of
students’ critical thinking skill through the teaching of Reading”, ‘Reading to Learn’’,
discover that students’ critical thinking skill can be improved by combining the
teaching of reading and writing.
Another research by Ferrer & Staley (2016) indicated that the implementation of
reading plan, collaborative works with teachers, revision and feedback from teachers
and students and innovative student-led activities become the essential aspects for the
success of the design and implementation of a reding program in a university EFL
setting. Meanwhile, Muirhead et al., (2016) reported that there was an increasing need
for critical thinking to be taught online education because industry needs educated
workers who can think critically, develop effective critical thinking and teachers need
technology platform to enhance students’ critical thinking. In addition, research
conducted by Chouari, (2016) shows that students need a better course to differentiate
issues between theory-practice gap and interesting teaching and learning operation. The
research conducted by Husna (2019) found that Critical Thinking test showed an
improvement and positive influence in the students’ critical thinking after the teacher
applied Extensive Reading program.
Authentic texts are useful to be use in teaching reading and in developing critical
thinking. Ryandani et al. (2018) mentioned that the use of authentic materials on
teaching reading gives positive effects on students’ motivation in reading and students
have positive task oriented, ego involvement, achievement, high aspiration, goal
oriented, perseverance and tolerance of ambiguity. Another research conducted by Sari
et al. (2020) shows that that most of the studies recommend the educators used authentic
materials to be applied in the classroom.
The present study was guided by research question; how the use of authentic
materials can promote critical thinking skill. Accordingly, this research aimed to acquire
the evidence that authentic materials can activate the students to think critically in
understanding and analyzing ‘what behind the text’.

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Authentic texts are written to communicate the information and knowledge
which is needed by the society. Furthermore, they are produced in native language, this
means that the texts are written and purposed for native (Harmer, 2008). Authentic text
is a real –life texts, not written for pedagogic purposes. They have been produced to
fulfill some social purposes in the language community. In short, authentic materials is
the text that is used native language and is purposed to communicate the message
among the native community, and they closely relate to social life. Authentic material is
categorized into three: 1) Authentic listening materials such as: newscast, song lyrics,
conversation on film; 2) Authentic visuals materials such as traffic signs, pictures on
magazine. etc., 3) authentic printed materials such as articles on the newspapers or
magazines, menu, tickets etc. Those texts are not aimed for teaching materials.
However, reading the authentic texts is the recommended way to improve students’
critical consciousness which is an understanding on the goodness and the integrity
within the social community. Thus, this will influence and build student’s personality.
Therefore, the authentic text is the teaching material in the teaching of reading.
Regarding to build the critical consciousness, reading activity should apply
critical thinking which is called critical reading. Reichenbach (2001) stated that “critical
thinking is the careful, deliberate determination of whether we should accept, reject, or
suspend judgement about the truth of a claim or a recommendation to act in certain
context. This implies that students try to understand author’s perspective and author’s
argument in presenting the information. Moreover, students must be able to evaluate the
text’s credibility (Chaffee, 2002). According to Cottrell (2005) reading critically oblige
students to discover the unstated matters within the text and go behind the text by
analyzing it with the use of language itself.

METHOD

This research aimed to obtain deeper insight regarding social phenomena, which is to
study students’ respond toward a reading text (Silverman, 2005:10). Hence, the use of
qualitative approach was regarded suitable as this research focuses on process and
product (Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E., & Hyun, 2017). In this case, the process is the

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practice of students in apprehending the message of a text or an article, whilst, product

is their expression of argument, either spoken or written.
The subject of this research was 60 students of English Department who were in
the third semester. They were selected because they had got the subjects of Reading 1
which is basic of reading knowledge and Reading 2 that is reading strategy. Those are
the prerequisites for supporting their advance reading, critical reading.
The data, which were gained by qualitative method, were students’ answers to
10 critical questions based on authentic material text constructed by (Reichenbach,
2001), (Chaffee, 2000). The texts used were: ‘Expensive Cigarettes; Why Not?’ (The
Jakarta Post, 24 Octpber 2016), ‘Tiger-skin traders sentenced to 4 years in prison’ (The
Jakarta Post, 9 September 2016), ‘Advertisement: BMW’ (http://creative-
ads.org/shocking-ads-shockvertising/bmw-spare-parts-shocking-ad/, 3 October 2016),
‘Ride this way’ (The Jakarta Post, Jplus – volume 1 No. 17, February2014), and ‘Mice
Cartoon’ (Kompas).
Analyzing process of qualitative data was done through codification,
categorization, and contextualization. The codification step was firstly done to ease
identifying phenomenon and noting exposure frequency so that these would be useful
for sharpening the research focus and directing it to accurate findings(Alwasillah &
Puncochar, 2016). The next step was categorization based on main theories used in this
research. The obtained data were then categorized based on levels of thinking proposed
by Bloom’s taxonomy. The last step was contextualizing to connect the relation
between the questions with the issues within its context (Alwasillah & Puncochar,
2016). To have the result, those analysis were referred to the rubric of critical thinking
stages, and to theories of critical reading and critical thinking as the basic principle of
this research. The rubric of critical thinking stages is presented as follows.

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Table 1 Bloom’s Critical Thinking Stages

Stages of Critical Thinking Criteria

Knowledge In terms of critical thinking, the basic level of acquisition

of knowledge requires that you be able to identify what is
being said: the topic, the issue, the thesis, and the main
points.

Comprehension Comprehension means understanding the material read,

heard, or seen. In comprehending, you make the new
knowledge that you have acquired your own by relating it
to what you already know.

Application Application requires that you know what you have read,
heard, or seen, that you comprehend it, and that you carry
out some tasks to apply what you comprehend to an actual
situation

Analysis Analysis involves breaking what you read or hear into its
component parts, to make clear how the ideas are ordered,
related, or connected to other ideas. Analysis deals with
both form and content.

Synthesis Synthesis involves the ability to put together the parts you
analysed with other information to create something
original.

Evaluation Evaluation occurs once we have understood and analysed

what is said or written and the reasons offered to support
it. Then we can appraise this information to decide
whether you can give or withhold belief, and whether to
take a particular action.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

In this research, authentic texts were given as learning materials to promote

students’ critical thinking skills. Authentic text can be used as a tool to give structural
support (scaffold) for the students. This was tried to be discovered by providing them
with some questions to be answered by students, then their answers are analyzed. The
questions were constructed to promote their critical thinking ability and the questions
that required their ability in showing the basic skill in understanding the text. The Data
were taken five times with different text, and the result can be seen in the table below.

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Table 2 Students’ Thinking Skill Stages

No. Data Thinking Skill Stages

Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysing
Data 1 23% 38% 20% 19%
Data 2 27% 38% 22% 13%
Data 3 32% 38% 16% 14%
Data 4 31% 33% 17% 19%
Data 5 27% 30% 17% 26 %

The table indicates that most students have had basic skills for reading
critically, which are knowledge and comprehension. They are able to identify the central
idea of the article and the primary questions of authors that is answered in the text. They
understand what the text says but they have not got what behind the text as the critical
readers should do. Some of them have achieved application and analytical thinking
skill stages which they can relate their understanding from the text with their
background knowledge and experiences.
Specifically, this study was identifying and analyzing data concerning students’
skills in four criteria. Those four criteria are:
1. knowing/understanding issue disclosed by writer within the text
2. understanding the objective why the text is written
3. recognizing evidence and utterances supporting delivery of issue
4. delivering argument, either written or spoken, regarding the issue disclosed
within text.

1. The skill of knowing/ Understanding Issue of a(n) Text/Article

The issue of article is the primary question the author asks and goes on to
answer (Reichenbach, 2001). To acknowledge the issue is a bit difficult since it is not
explicitly written in the text so that the students must read think it more. The question
proposed to see students’ ability in identifying the topic and the issue of the text is: what
is the author trying to tell us about? and what does the authors try to answer? The
analysis of the data discovers that most students have obtained their ability of knowing
the topic and some of others can show their understanding on issue of the text. This
implies that they are potentially able to think critically. However, this thinking ability is
still in the basic skill to be critical in reading.

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Here is the example that is acceptable as the correct answer.

Q: What is the issue raised?
A: the controverse of increasing cigarettes price.

2. The skill of Understanding Objective of Text

The questions concerning issue within text requires the answers that shows
students’ ability in understanding what the text does or what the authors wants the
readers do or act. This is to see what is the purpose of the text that the author tries to
gain. The questions proposed to students is: what’s the author contention within the
text? or why the text is written? The analysis found that most of them have the ability of
figure out objective of the text. This means that they were able to understand the
purpose of the author related to broader social problem. This can be seen from the
following examples that are taken from students ‘answers.
Q: Why is the text written?
A: Respondent to show the impact of the expensive costs of cigarettes from some point
of
Q: What is the writer contention or viewpoints on the issue? Which statement support
this?
A: The writer wants to inform us about the issue from the government about raising
cigarettes price.

3. Skill of Recognizing Evidence

Critical thinking in reading closely relate to argument or reasoning, fact, and
evidence (Cottrell, 2005). Therefore, students must own the ability in recognizing them
to be critical in deciding if the text is credible. They must see whether the argument
supports the idea of authors and relevant so that authors point view that is in the text is
believable.
Here is an example shows the ability of student in acknowledging the evidence
supported authors argument.

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Q: What is the writer contention or viewpoints on the issue? Which statement support
this?
A: The writer agrees with the decision of raising the costs of cigarettes. Supported by
the statement on paragraph 8 states that it is right decision taken by government …

There are many students who answered in the same way. This indicated that they
have possessed the ability in identifying evidence that support writer’s idea which
indicates application level in critical thinking stage.
After having identified evidence, facts or arguments, critical readers will do
more than just believing in them by asking further about those evidence. This is in line
with the statement from Chaffee (2000) Cottrell (2005) that reading critically means
having outlook to know more about the topic and the issue of the text so that raising
questions to see an argument and reasons that is proposed by the author.
The result of analyzing data from students’ answers indicated that students
have possessed the skill of recognizing evidence. They showed their curiosity by
eliciting questions. The following questions are the examples of student’s critical view
on the text, this is in line with the nature of critical thinking that students should be
promoted to elicit questions that are to see their clarity, accuracy, relevance, and
precision (Emilia, 2010).
The following questions are from students to show their critical in reading the
text.
Q: What question (s) will you ask to know more about the issue, topic, and the argument
of this article. Is there any solution to stop smoker without cause problem?

Table 3 Students’ Questions Showing Their Critical in Reading the Text

Data Questions

Responden 1 Does government provide other job for jobless caused by the issue?
Responden 2 Will it be effective to reduce the number of smokers?
Responden 3 Is it effective for poor people to be healthier?
Responden 4 How about electrical cigarettes?
Responden 8 The poor family would be healthier if the smoke expensive
Responden 9 How about the seller on the road? What should they do to continue their life?

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What if the rate of crime in Indonesia getting high because poor people will
steal money for buying cigarettes
Responden 10 How to prevent illegal cigarettes?
Responden 11 What will government do about the risk of illegal smoke?
Responden 12 Will the company survive?
Responden 16 Is there any conspiration from medical company?
Responden 17 What will government do if people buy from other country which is cheaper?
Responden 21 What is the solution of there are many black markets selling cigarette?
How many percent this fat improve people health?

4. Skill of Delivering Argument

Reading critically see the text as a means of communication between two
parties, which are author and readers. This implies that readers may respond to the text
concerning the issue and the writer’s position which are supported by relevant evidence
and facts. In this case, the readers perceive the issue from their point of views,
Students showed their skill to convey their opinion about discussed issue by
applying their knowledge and experience to show point of view. Regarding to this, the
result was obtained by analyzing students’ answers on the questions that requires their
critical thinking. Here is the example of student’s opinion on the issue showing his
contention
Q: What’s your position on this article?
A: I agree with this issue to make Indonesia better and to prevent young generation
become smoker. I think if the price of cigarette is expensive, the teenagers will not
afford to buy it. So, they cannot smoke at this time.
This statement shows that he/she did not only understand what was written in the
text but also tried to constitute the issue with his /her experience in their daily life. He
provided an argument for his agreement.

CONCLUSION

The research findings indicated that most of students’ answers are in an

understanding stage (Bloom Taxonomy), This shows that students have had basic skills
as requirement for reading critically. However, they had achieved analysis thinking

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skill. This means that the use of authentic material can promote students critical
thinking in reading. Accordingly, students critical thinking skill can be developed in
various methods. One possible method is using authentic text as the teaching material.
Reading text will consist of some types of text (Luke and Freebody, in Emilia,
2005:35), which are narration, advertisement, etc. The text should be authentic, which
means that the text is not for teaching purpose.
In this research, authentic texts were given as learning materials to promote
students’ critical thinking skill. Authentic text can be used as a tool to give structural
support (scaffold) for the students. The questions given to the students promote them to
be able to affirm their opinion based on their point of view regarding issue within the
text. Moreover, those questions stimulate curiosity about the issue within the article. As
a result, their critical thinking skill can develop. It can be seen from the findings that the
answers to the questions are dominantly in field of application, which means that the
students are able to apply what they have understood into real situation. The Use of
authentic text constitutes ‘a bridge’ between language learning in class and language
usage in real world in English speaking citizen. However, this research shows that the
use of authentic material is not fully stimulate students’ higher order thinking skill
(HOTS).

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